G3 panels & time

frthomas

Hello,

I have a couple of panels that now indicate the time is "34:08", which is strange. That lead me to a quest on how is time actually managed between the panels and the master.

It seems an unconnected panel keeps somewhat track of time by itself. There are references in the technote to the fact changing time on panels would correct the master. So the questions really are:

- Is time information sent at all over AXLink?
- If yes, who's the master? How does it work?

At some point, I wrote code in the panel ONLINE event to the effect of sending the correct time from the master. I suspect this is what lead to the "34:08" display, either as a bug in my code or in AMX's.

I looked this up into the available documentation and can't find anything on the subject. Anybody has an idea? Assuming in my case the master is the time source (synced up by NTP), so how do I have the G3 panels follow the master?

Thanks

Fred

Dries Kaspers

I use the following code in the online event for the touchpanel;

SEND_COMMAND dvTP,"'CLOCK ',DATE,' ',TIME"

This seems to work ok. I would like AMX to implement an automatic daylight savings correction though, i now use the supplied system call modified for european daylight savings.

Problem with this is that wherever i install Netlinx studio i always have to remind myself to overwrite the system call file manually.

DHawthorne

Originally posted by Dries Kaspers
I use the following code in the online event for the touchpanel;

SEND_COMMAND dvTP,"'CLOCK ',DATE,' ',TIME"

This seems to work ok. I would like AMX to implement an automatic daylight savings correction though, i now use the supplied system call modified for european daylight savings.

Problem with this is that wherever i install Netlinx studio i always have to remind myself to overwrite the system call file manually.

You can send the same string to a NetLinx master. Whenever I have Internet access on NetLinx, I either install i!-TimeManager or i!-Schedule to keep the time right and adjust for Daylight Savings. If I have multiple masters, I install on one and have it send the time string periodically (like once a minute) to syncronize them. I don't think G3 panels automatically get time form the master, but G4's do; I send a time string to G3's as well to sync them with the master. It's one of my pet peeves, I can't stand multiple clocks with different times on them...I'll even sync the time on devices with clocks if their protocol allows it (like Homeworks Interactive; even though there is no visible clock, I sync it to the master so things happen properly and there is no chance of a power interuption messing things up).